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Before we begin with what the title has to do with this complaint, let me complain about two things.

First, why is it that one of my classmates, who has to be either a senior or a junior in college, can't remember to check-in code that he has checked out? I need to use the code and the longer the person sits on it, the longer I have to wait to work on it!

Second, I don't understand the UK. I seriously cannot understand some of the people there. I mean, this is an island which it seems like everyone from there in the dA forums will complain about how horrible personal cars are and how the US is horrible because a lot of people actually own a car and don't car pool 24-7. Yet on this same island, you have a TV show that is only about cars, mainly sports cars, and drives them everywhere. Then there are plenty of other lesser known TV shows with people with British accents (yes, you have one) as well as another magazine (that I am aware of) that does podcasts. You have not one, but two major video game studios that are well known on a global level for their racing games. Then you even have companies like Mini Cooper, Jaguar, and even Aston Martin. Aston Martin has a team that is specifically for racing in the Le Mans races. They do GT1 and have done the LMP1 and were threats (even winning) to everyone else who are vets in that class. Team Aston Martin is literally the newbies to this series and they give vets like Team Corvette and Team Audi a run for their money. You have a famous track on that island! And apparently driving is not well loved on that island. I don't understand!

So then, because the following complaint is going to be so freakin' long before I have even written it:tl;dr: I want one of these: [link]I want one so bad that with just one night in the right place, it would be so rough that I would not sleep for a few weeks.

Last night, as I tried to sleep, my mind ran off into the wonder as it usually does. My thoughts went off into the idea of how the latest Need for Speed games don't really hit the spot anymore and how they don't seem to evolve anymore outside of just trying some new game mechanic. And don't get me wrong, I loved that series as a kid, especially Underground 2 (due to renting the game for a week and then having a horrible illness that made everything horrible but when playing the game) and I became so invested in the series that I could look at one preview for the newest title, look at which studio is developing it, and know what the game will be good at, what will be bad, what varies per person, and what questions should be asked in interviews. As I grew older, I became even more serious into racing games in general. I got a high end (at the time, and is still mostly good) steering wheel set for more realistic and better controls, letting me drive a manual transmission as much as possible. I got to the point that I avoid a lot of "racing" games in which you just held down the gas button and moved around (except for F-Zero GX, due to obvious reasons for those that have played it.)

But as of late, the Need for Speed series has been feeling very mellow (despite that Criterion, one of the two best studios for making racing games from the UK, made the last one) and not really worth investing time and money in. Even other games, such as GRID (made by the other greatest racing game studio in the UK,) Test Drive: Unlimited 2, Forza 4 (Horizon is just bad in my opinion due to the heavy use of free roaming and no fine tuning of cars,) Burnout, and even my secret weapons like Shift and ProStreet are not hitting that spot just right. It just seems like no game could be made at the current moment to get the size (in both career, cars, tracks, and modifications) and experience to be just right to play. I'm even doubting an HD + more content update + fix to Underground 2, ProStreet, or Shift would be enough to just nail it for me.

Then the epiphany hit me. I wanted the real experience. The Need for Speed series were going to remain strictly a video game with no interest in being as realistic as possible. But I want the real thing. I want to actually go to a track and drive a car for the fastest time I could pull from it. I want to actually push myself to the point where most people would be screaming in horror (grant, I think some people would based off of how I drive now.) I want to be the person who goes to the Nürburgring on weekends to drive fast (in this case, the closest track.)

And I wouldn't be satisfied with less. I don't want a wimpy little car that everyone else drives because "it gets great gas mileage and has XM radio that the kids and I always listen to." I don't want to just live with a cheap sports car that never sees a track or be satisfied because "it has at least 200 HP." I don't want to go out clubbing because other people find it fun. I don't want to settle into a relationship, get married, and have kids because "it is the only way to have meaning in your life." I will not settle for less because everyone else is fine with it and expects me to. I want to do something that does have meaning to me. I have always had this drive to desire something different from everyone else, not wanting to go with the status quo.

Yet here I am, waiting for that time to act, key elements to come into play. But waiting with impatience like a child waiting for Christmas right after eating his Thanksgiving meal...or me on Christmas Eve because my mind decides to commit treason and act like Navi.

Then my mind decided to keep me up late last night, thinking about cars as well as all of today.

Bonus complaint: My mother is no doubting that the phone I want will work on AT&T's networks and it actually might be the case that I can't be grandfathered in to our family plan since it would be an unlocked phone in need of a new SIM card.

Anti-complaint: I am pretty much going to get a new smart phone for Christmas. I am late to this family party of smart phones and I program for these things.

Devious Comments

I don't really care about what car I drive, but at my last job we got to take the Tesla Roadster out for a test drive. It was quite nice, though it feels weird when you're used to noisy cars and you suddenly drive something that makes about as much noise as a bike. [link]

Basically, someone will complain about commuting by car, then it is usually the case that a UK person might reply about how traveling by public transportation is much better in just about every aspect and how driving a personal car with no one is horrible in a lot of ways. This makes no sense when anything related to cars in a balanced view usually comes from the UK or anyone with a British accent.

And yes, I did exaggerate it, but the mentality has come up quite often.

Yeah, it's a shame that finding older games is so painstaking, especially because Gamestop couldn't give less of a shit about anything that's not new or current gen. I'm fortunate enough to have a store around me called GameXchange, which is like heaven. Floor to ceiling shelves stocked with older games, even Dreamcast games and a BIN of gameboy games. And *gasp* original cases for most of their games! This is a place that specializes in gaming from all gens, something I can't say the same for their bigger chain counterparts.

No, I'm pretty sure that having a short complaint is "common courtesy," especially with a tl;dr in there (grant, lodged and poorly spaced with no indication of its existence outside of reading the first ~300 words.)

Yeah, I need to expound on that sentence. Instead of clubbing where it is everything that I hate, I went to two car shows where I actually did enjoy being there (not to mention that almost no one around my age can actually say that they have been in one.) Instead of partying for something, I literally stayed up all night in the freezing cold to wait in line for an autograph to a book (also apparently ending up on the news in the background for everyone in my hometown to see.) I also apparently have completely different tastes in video games compared to other CSC majors (barely even relating to just two others.)

As for settling on a fast car, one way to look at it is one of my classmates wants a fast car but instead but the family-orientated (and he knows it is) Chevy Malibu while I sat on my hands for over 8 months while I tried to find a car that I actually liked, could afford in price and insurance, and could actually picked up (could have had a Mazda 3speed after 4 months, but thing was about a 600 mile drive just to even get to.)